Reunion
by LightningFuryStrike13
Summary: Derek's just looking for a place to stay. Not a home. Not a pack. Not his long lost anchor. He's given up on any of that. Things always seem darkest just before the dawn.


Derek stood in the center of the room with his arms crossed over his chest. He kept his gaze on the floor away from the alpha before him and ignored the betas surrounding him. He sighed and made no effort to hide it. What was the big deal? He wasn't asking to join the pack. He'd learned that lesson the hard way too many times. He was just asking to take a job as a forest ranger in the territory. The area he would be patrolling was as far from the den of any pack as he could get.

Then again if he was alpha would he let a blue eyed wolf sit on the edge of his territory? Maybe. After all he still shared a bond with Peter who was arguably a bigger threat than him all around.

They were waiting on the pack's Emissary to arrive. The alpha wanted his input before he made the call either way but he was blunt about not liking having Derek here.

Emissary made him think of Stiles and Derek reached for the anchor bond connecting him to the young spark. He missed him but at least he still had this bond to him. He'd have long gone feral without Stiles.

He heard the heartbeat approaching and quickly squashed the hope that blossomed in his chest. Yes the too quick heartbeat sounded like Stiles but it wasn't. It hurt but Derek had given up hope of finding the spark. Until Stiles forgave him he was lost to him except for the bond. He took a deep breath to swallow his sob trusting the despair and sadness that hung around him like a persistent odor would keep the wolves from noticed the spike of pain in his scent.

He raised his eyes however when he caught a whiff of that lovely scent. It matched the heartbeat, the oh so familiar heartbeat that was coming closer and hope bloomed again in his chest despite how he tried to stop it. All his control deserted him however when a tall, thin man with bambi eyes and big hands rounded the corner to stop and stare at him. He looked surprised but not angry and Derek moved forward with hands, no, claws outstretched as his control deserted him.

"Stiles." He whined.

Stiles moved forward but he was blocked by the alpha and his betas as they rushed to put themselves between Derek and Stiles. Derek shifted in response to their shift and things might have gotten bloody had Stiles not darted around his alpha and held up his hands calming everyone down.

Derek was at least gratified that Stiles put his back to Derek. The trust inherent in such an act made him whimper. He lowered himself to his knees as he wrestled himself back under control. He listened to Stiles' voice as he calmed the other wolves down. The rapid words were like music to his ears and he wondered if anyone would freak out if he reached into his pocket for his phone to record Stiles' voice.

"Whoa! Hey! Calm down! This is Derek. He's not gonna hurt me. He's my anchor for crying out loud. Just let me handle this." Stiles stood over Derek with his arms outstretched and his eyes locked with alpha reds until they faded and the alpha waved for his betas to stand down. "Okay. That's better. Now what's going on here? You said you had someone you wanted me to look at. Was it Derek?"

"Yes. He's looking to take a job as a forest ranger near the border of our territory. He was here to ask permission but something about him makes me itchy. To be blunt he feels like an alpha but he's got blue eyes. I wondered if maybe he had a spell on him that hid his true eye color. That he's an alpha who's here to try and poach my betas." Alpha Stan crossed his arms over his chest. He was an older man who reminded Stiles powerfully of his own father. It was a big reason why he'd settled with this pack.

Stiles turned then and was surprised to find Derek on his knees. He quickly knelt between Derek's spread legs. Of all the words Derek ever thought Stiles would say to him after their long separation this was not it. "Hey Big Guy! You finished your forestry degree. Good Job." With a smile. Like they'd only been apart in the time it'd taken Derek to get his degree and not the six years it'd been since Derek walked away that day in Mexico.

Derek looked up at him in disbelief. He opened his mouth and closed it a few times.

Stiles looked a little confused and Derek could smell the bit of hurt he was masking. "You okay Der?"

"I missed you." Derek finally said in a rush.

Stiles' hurt vanished as he smiled a little. "I missed you too."

"You're not mad?"

"Why would I be mad Baby?" The pet name slipped out accidently.

"I left. I left you. But I thought. I thought you knew why I left. Why I had to leave and I'm sorry I did but I thought you knew. You understood but then I came back and you were gone and no one would talk to me and your dad wouldn't tell me where you were so I started looking and I went to all your first pick colleges, and your second pick and your third pick and you weren't at any of them." It was more words than Derek had said to anyone in too many years to count but if anyone understood verbal vomit it was Stiles.

Stiles frowned and Derek shrunk back a bit but then he had a lap full of Stiles as the younger man saw him cringe and quickly wrapped his arms around Derek to pull him in and place Derek's face firmly into his tattooed neck.

Derek heard the growls of the alpha and beta as he aggressively scent marked Stiles but he ignored them. Stiles smelt like all these wolves and nothing like Derek and it sucked. He wasn't going to miss any opportunity to mix their scents together again.

Stiles was carding his fingers through Derek's thick black hair as he bit his lip and tried to parse through the information given. His alpha had edged around to face him with a raised eyebrow and a disgruntled look as he watched this strange not-alpha cover his own scent markers on his Emissary. He understood that this might be a special circumstance however especially if this not-alpha was his Emissary's anchor as he said.

"Okay. Let me see if I can put this together. You left with Cora. Which you're right I understood. I hated it. But I understood. I mean you'd literally just DIED and it sucked and I got it. I really did. Then I went back to Beacon Hills and…" Stiles sighed heavily. "I'm not getting into that shit show but I left too. I took my GED and I left. But getting my GED knocked me out of a bunch of my scholarships. I ended up getting accepted at this little college near Phoenix that wasn't on any of my lists. Anyway I apprenticed under Emissary Melissa there and after I graduated I came up here to finish my apprenticeship under Emissary Carl who retired. Before I left Beacon Hills I got a new number, left it with my dad and told him…fuck I told him I didn't want to hear from anyone in the McCall pack, no passed on messages, nothing. He must have thought that included you."

"Never in McCall's pack." Derek grumbled into Stiles' neck.

"Right. You joined…Cora's pack right?"

Derek shook his head without lifting it and didn't see Stiles' worried expression though he could smell it. "Cora…sort of forgives me but her pack didn't. Her alpha…same thing as here. Said it was like walking on eggshells having another alpha in his territory. He asked me to leave. Nothing I said convinced him I wasn't an alpha anymore."

Stiles frowned. "Okay. Here's where I do my Emissary thing. Lean back for me Baby. Come on let me see your pretty face." He gently urged Derek away from his neck. "There we go. Show me those pretty beta blues."

Derek's eyes glowed the unearthy blue Stiles was familiar with. Alpha Stan was right there was no hint of alpha red in them but…he could feel what he was talking about. There was more power in Derek than there should be if he was just a run of the mill beta. Far more than he should have as an omega. Maybe it was because he was an evolved wolf? They were super rare. Derek was the only one Stiles had ever encountered.

"Okay. So there's this thing I can do. I can look at your spark. All the layers of your spark. You know your family motto? Alpha, Beta, Omega? How you can rise or fall? Well that history of rising and falling can be seen in your spark. Like rings on a tree. Look into my eyes. You can blink but don't look away. I'm gonna look at your spark. Okay?"

Derek nodded trustingly. His eyes remain bright blue as he stared into Stiles' near beta gold eyes. His hands had slipped under the back of Stiles' shirt and he rubbed little circles on the small of his back just reveling in the soft skin under his fingers.

Stiles meanwhile dived into Derek's spark. He didn't know what he was expecting but this wasn't it. There was a typical core of gold that all born wolves possessed followed by not just a ring but a solid block of relentless blue. Paige aside the guilt Derek carried over his family's deaths was immense and would have turned his eyes blue regardless. This was followed however by alpha red. Red all the way up to the last ring. Twenty-seven rings in total one for each year. Stiles could clearly count the fifteen years of gold followed by six years of blue and six more years of red without pause. Stan and the South American Alpha was right. Derek was an alpha. His eyes should be red. So why weren't they?

Stiles looked deeper at the red of Derek's rings. Specifically he looked at the time when Derek supposedly lost his alpha spark burning out Cora's poison but there was nothing. Not a blip. Not a skip. Just pure alpha red. The only variation was that right around the time Derek died/evolved it got stronger, brighter. Stiles then went in to look at Derek's bonds and physically winced. Fuck.

His family bonds were almost all cauterized wounds that pulsed with pain. Laura, Cora, and Peter's weren't cauterized but Laura's was frayed before it ripped meaning Derek hadn't had the best relationship with his alpha before she died. His bonds with Cora and Peter made Stiles wince again because they were alpha cut. He could see the red lines where Laura had purposefully cut Cora and Peter's bonds to Derek. So much for claiming she just didn't know Cora had survived. Depending on how quickly she'd done it after the fire there was a good chance Derek hadn't noticed at all. Just lumped the pain of losing them in with the rest. These two bonds were still active but barely. If Stiles had to describe it he'd have said they were stuck together with glue instead of being sown in tight like they should have been.

Next came his bond with his once betas. Jackson's was green and sickly and snapped. Isaac's was curly and torn like he'd stretched the bond until it broke. Erica's was bumpy and twisted before it was cut off. Boyd's had been strong and gold until it abruptly wasn't.

Finally there was his bond to Stiles' himself. Stiles was relieved to see that at the very least this bond and only this bond was healthy. He did feel a little voyeuristic looking at the bond Derek had going to him. The bond said things he wasn't sure Derek was ready to say.

He took another look at Peter and Cora's bonds. They were weak considering they were family bonds. Peter's was a bit stronger than Cora's but they were not pack bonds like Derek should have as an alpha. Peter's had been cut then reglued as Peter had been Derek's alpha for a time then ripped apart again when Derek killed Peter then reglued when Derek was briefly Peter's alpha again before relaxing back into a family bond only. It was probably only as strong as it was because Peter seemed to be putting effort into it…unlike Cora.

So Derek was an alpha without a pack. Was that why his eyes weren't red? Because he didn't have a pack? How had he even cleansed Cora with a bond that weak? He'd looked into mistletoe cleansing but he'd only seen circumstances where a weaker beta had sacrificed their spark to heal a stronger beta to protect the pack's strength as a whole. Never of an alpha doing so and even then burning your spark up like that meant death. The death of the alpha mean the end, and potentially, the death of the whole pack. He hadn't been there when Derek had done it but afterwards he'd had questions that absolutely no one would answer.

He pulled back so he was looking at Derek's face instead of his spark and bonds. "Okay. Well. Yeah Der. You're still an alpha."

Derek frowned and shook his head his eyebrows coming down in a confused V.

"Sparks don't lie Baby. Gold till you were fifteen then blue for six years then red and it's been red ever since."

"But….no. I healed Cora. I burned up my alpha spark."

Stiles winced. "I don't see how you could have Derek. Your bond with Cora…it's not strong enough for that. I've read about mistletoe cleansing. Studied it under both Mel and Carl and it doesn't work like that. You need a strong bond with the person you're cleansing and to burn up your spark like that means death. You wouldn't have just burned out the alpha parts of your spark. You'd have burned out all of it if you'd actually cleansed her like that."

Derek looked confused. "My bond isn't…she's my sister."

Stiles winced. "Okay. So. I can see your bonds. All your bonds and how they connect and how strong they are, how they formed and how…they've been broken." Stiles took a deep breath. "Like I now know you didn't have the best relationship with Laura…" He waited to see Derek's reaction. He was a little tense but not necessarily afraid despite literally being in Derek's lap. Even if he hadn't seen Derek's bond to him he still wasn't scared of Derek. Hadn't been for a long time.

Derek looked down at his lap. He winced when he noticed his claws had popped out but luckily were still gentle on Stiles' fragile and tattooed skin. "I was her only beta. I didn't do such a good job."

Stiles winced and looked over towards his alpha and tried to motion that maybe this should be a private conversation. Stan shook his head. He wasn't about to leave his fragile Emissary here alone with a strange alpha-not-alpha. Besides he and his seconds would just keep listening if they were outside the room.

Stiles sighed. "And that makes even less sense because…Laura cut Peter and Cora's bonds."

Derek looked up at him shocked and Stiles quickly cupped Derek's jaw stroking his fingers along the edge of Derek's beard under his eyes.

"I'm sorry Baby but alpha cuts are very distinct. There's no way Laura didn't know Cora and Peter survived. She purposefully cut your bonds to them. Depending on how soon after the fire she did it you probably didn't even notice."

Derek shook his head and closed his eyes. "I-I didn't know Peter had survived until I was eighteen. Laura let me start taking care of the finances then and I noticed Peter's hospital bills. I wanted to move him to New York with us but she wouldn't let me. I thought…I thought I couldn't feel him through the bonds cause we were so far away then Laura died and…" Derek shook his head. "I was an idiot. I'd never had a bond that wasn't family before. I thought all the bonds just tied to the alpha and when the alpha died they were all lost and that's why I couldn't feel him when I got to Beacon Hills."

"You're not an idiot. Pack bonds do work like that. That's why you never hear about an alpha doing a mistletoe cleansing. Burning up your alpha spark like that means the death of the alpha, which can mean the dissolution of the pack. Sure family members and mates will keep those bonds but the rest are all tied to the alpha."

"And distance doesn't matter but I didn't know that."

"Baby you were fifteen. Then eighteen. Cut yourself some slack. If a fifteen/eighteen year old wolf walked in here and told you he knew everything there was to know about pack bonds would you believe him?"

Derek's lips quirked up in a smirk. At twenty-seven teenagers felt like babies. Hell at twenty-one sixteen year olds had felt like babies. That was one of the myriad of reasons Derek had left and only returned for Stiles' graduation when he knew the pretty spark would finally be legal.

"Mother Moon I look back now and….I owe you an apology Baby. I was a dumb kid and you were only a few years older and I thought you had all the answers but you were just a dumb kid like me. You were the quote unquote adult to all us teenagers when you were barely old enough to drink yet. You remember that? Gods I want to go back in time sometimes and just scream at younger us like 'Alpha Satomi is in Redding just like an hour North! Go beg for help! Please!' and Deaton? Fuck Deaton. He should have been all over us helping instead of letting three teenage boys deal with a feral alpha and motherfucking hunters. Not even just run of the mill hunters but fucking Argents." Stiles flailed around waving his arms as he rambled and Derek looked up at him like he hung the moon. In that moment weird alpha or no Alpha Stan at least relaxed.

"Yeah. I look back and think there was a lot of things I'd do differently. Like check on Peter more and figure out he was the alpha. Try harder to stabilize him." Derek paused before looking up at Stiles and taking a chance on his next words. "I'd rip Scott's throat out for saying my family deserved to burn. Let Peter kill Allison. NOT kill Peter. Be there for Jackson like I was supposed to. Not quote unquote cook up baby werewolves out of every self-esteem ridden teen in Beacon Hills and certainly not be as harsh on them as I was. My only models for alpha were my mom and Laura and…" Derek shook his head. "I know better now."

"Good thing since well…you are an alpha. I don't know why your eyes aren't red but you are an alpha Baby."

Derek shook his head. "That doesn't make sense."

"The only thing I can think of is that you don't have any betas? That's…I mean…you supposedly healed Cora right around the same time Scott became a True Alpha. Erica and Boyd were already dead or dying and Isaac immediately switched allegiance to Scott. Peter's…uh I'm scared to look at his bonds but I bet they're just as fucky. Maybe you pushed enough of your spark to Cora to burn out the mistletoe at the same time you lost all your betas and that made it appear that you'd lost your spark?" Stiles sounded doubtful. "Hell maybe your alpha spark works like my spark and you only appear to be a beta because you believe you're a beta?" He looked up at his alpha with a question. "Alphas can't bond with other alphas either can they?"

Stan shook his head. "That's why he's making me nervous and he has to know that to a certain extent because he didn't ask to join the pack just to live as an omega in my territory."

Derek winced. "I've been rejected enough to know not to ask. It's not because I'm an alpha. I didn't know that until Stiles told me. I don't know why my eyes are blue either but I'm not gonna bond a beta just to see if they turn red. I'm not gonna steal your betas. I wouldn't curse anyone to have me as an alpha."

"Hey! The bite is a gift." Stiles told him hoping to coax out a grin.

Derek rolled his eyes. "The bite may be a gift but I am a curse. If I didn't know we were each other's anchor I'd have found a way to self-terminate by now but I won't do that to you."

Stiles' scent went abruptly and fiercely angry. "You're damn straight you won't do that. Damn it Derek you're not a curse. You might be cursed-" Stiles stopped to considered that. "…You know you might be cursed. I'll look later but regardless you are mine and you are not going anywhere. Fuck Baby I thought you were in South America with Cora just living life not hopelessly crossing the country looking for me. I need to call Dad. Give him an exception list...or well the only other exception would be Peter I guess…Maybe Chris."

"I'm in contact with Chris and Peter. They'll be happy to know I found you."

"Oh? That's good. How are they?"

"Good. Living in sin in France."

"Ah ha I knew something was going on with them."

Derek chuckled before leaning back in to nuzzle his face into Stiles' neck. "I'm yours. Think your Alpha will let me stay here as your pet werewolf?"

Stiles laughed. He looked up at Stan. "Can I keep him? Pet werewolf jokes aside Derek's a good guy. I trust him implicitly. He's my anchor and yeah. I don't know what's up with his spark but if he's kept himself sane, at a distant with me as his only healthy bond for six years. And damn baby, six years? He's safe."

Stan sighed. "I'm not gonna say I like it." He looked at the black haired werewolf wrapped around his Emissary. They were both so young and yeah he'd heard about all the Beacon Hills bullshit from Stiles before. If this was that Derek Hale then…yeah he did seem cursed but despite that you couldn't deny that he had tried his absolute best to remain on the side of the angels. Stiles trusted him and Stan trusted Stiles.

He was a damn fine Emissary and Stan knew precisely how lucky he was to have him. Though he was worried that if Derek ever did try to build a pack he'd lose Stiles to him for now he recognized this was not something they were going to fix today. "He can stay. Understand this though Alpha Hale. This is my territory. This is my pack. You're a born wolf so you SHOULD know the rules but I've heard Stiles talk about Beacon Hills enough to know you might be fuzzy on some areas so ask if you're unsure. I guess I'm just going to have to accept that my Emissary is gonna smell like another alpha but that doesn't mean I have to like it."

"I'll turn on the scent blocker when I'm around you Alpha but…Derek's not got anyone to scent mark but me…" Stiles sighed. "Thank you."

Derek nodded and looked up at Alpha Stan before blushing and standing while still holding Stiles in his arms. He reluctantly put the spark down on his feet before facing the other alpha. He shuffled his feet a bit. Looking at the ground. He glanced at Stiles who smiled encouragingly. "I-I don't know how I'm supposed to greet another alpha…as an alpha. Maybe it would help you not feel so…itchy around me?"

He kept his eyes on the ground and his neck tilted and it itched with wrongness. His body language wasn't just beta it was omega and it felt wrong to Stan. He could feel that Derek was an equal. Stan sighed. "Meet my eyes as an equal. Do not bare you neck. We are equal. Baring your neck just makes me think you're trying to sheepskin me."

"Sheepskin? Oh wolf in sheep's skin. Like he's trying to sneak into your pack. I get it." Stiles rambled. He took Derek's hand in encouragement.

Derek frowned looking like he was gathering his thoughts for several minutes before taking a deep breath. He straightened up, threw back his shoulders and puffed out his chest and met Alpha Stan's eyes head on. His eyes still glowed blue but…"Alpha Stan. I am…Alpha Derek Hale. I am packless and without territory. I would like to take a job as a forest ranger within your territory. I have no intention of stealing either your pack or your territory. I only want to live in peace…and date your Emissary. In return for being allowed to live here I offer my strength in defense of your territory and in the personal defense of your Emissary. Are these terms acceptable to you?"

Alpha Stan raised an eyebrow somewhat impressed and felt a bit of the itchy feeling under his skin subside. Derek's corrected body language did help. A lot. What he'd just said wasn't too different from what he said initially except for the parts about dating his Emissary which yeah he wasn't dumb. Stiles had crawled into Derek's lap for Selene's sake. Wolves hated liars though and that was a big part of what made Derek's initial introduction feel wrong. He introduced himself as an omega when every instinct Stan had shouted Alpha at him. It didn't matter that Derek had followed omega protocol or believed he was an omega because his instincts screamed an alpha was standing in front of him lying even if his heart was steady. He'd bet if he got in contact with the other alphas Derek had met in South America they'd say the same.

"These terms are acceptable Alpha Hale. For now I would feel more comfortable if you'd stay with my Emissary rather than take a home of your own. Is that okay?"

"Yes Alpha Stan. In fact I would prefer it."

"Settle in. We can talk again later about patrols. I imagine some of that might coincide with your job. Please send me your schedule once you have it."

"I will. Thank you Alpha Stan."

"You're welcome Alpha Hale. My Emissary will show you where you will be staying."

Stiles grinned. "Come on Baby. We got six years of cuddling to make up for." He grabbed Derek's hand and after making the vague motions he was supposed to towards Alpha Stan he dragged Derek out of the room.

Derek heard some of the betas question if it was really safe to have another alpha in the territory and was gratified to hear Stan sooth them instead of just barking at them. If he was an alpha, and all signs pointed to yes because it felt miles better to address Stan as an equal than as an omega, then perhaps he might finally have someone to model his behavior on. For now though he focused on Stiles.

They walked out to the old Jeep that was somehow still running. He was surprised to hear it start up perfectly. "You finally get it fixed?"

"Nah. Short of putting a whole new engine in it it's toast. Been toast for years. I was running it purely on Magic for most of high school and that's what I do now. I believe that Roscoe will keep going forever and he does."

Derek frowned. "What if you're tired or injured or unconscious and someone else needs to drive?"

Stiles winced. "Uh yeah. That's still a problem but it hasn't happened since I left Beacon Hills."

Derek rolled his eyes as he climbed in the passenger seat.

"How are you getting around now? What happened to the Camaro?"

"I left it with Cora so she'd have something of Laura's. She said it was only fair since I had six extra years with her."

Stiles frowned as he pulled out of the pack lodge's driveway and headed deeper into the forest where he lived. "Does-Does she blame you for her abandonment or something? I don't get Cora. I mean even if it's not really what happened you were willing to sacrifice your spark for her. You were fifteen and under Laura's command immediately after the fire. What's her deal?"

Derek shrugged. "I don't know. It's not like I had any delusions we were gonna be a happy family but…she's my little sister. I love her. I was so happy to learn she survived. She was heading back to Beacon Hills because she'd heard I was there. I thought she was happy to see me too but well you remember what she was like. After a couple of months though she just…it was like she came to hate the sight of me. Her pack certainly didn't help. I made her Alpha nervous and that made the betas nervous. I guess she got tired of defending me…" Derek had the sudden and very real fear that the same would happen here.

"Stan might need to call them and explain the whole hidden alpha thing. That'll probably smooth things over if you want to go back and visit her. First thing when we get back to my place I'm gonna check you for glamour spells and curses."

"What about cuddles?"

"Oh I'm gonna cuddle the shit out of you Sourwolf don't you worry. We're gonna order a huge meat lovers pizza and then Netflix and chill. I have a comfiest couch in existence and we are gonna take full advantage of every soft and cushy surface I have." Stiles shot him a quick smile and Derek relaxed for the first time in years.

He smiled back.

Notes: I'm new to the fandom only been in a few months. Only read a couple hundred fics (thank you Christine's rec lists). I've not read anywhere that Derek's just cursed with misfortune. I was just typing that part where he says he's a curse and both me and Stiles went...what if he is cursed? And we ran with that.


End file.
